Time discounting, present biases, and health-related behavior

Arbeitspapier

Analysis of an original nationwide Internet survey reveals that health-related behavior shows associations with three aspects of time discounting: (i) impatience, measured by the overall discount rate; (ii) present bias, measured by the degree of declining impatience in the generalized hyperbolic discount function; and (iii) the sign effect, in that future losses are discounted at a lower rate than future gains. Present-biased respondents are classified as naïve if the responses are indicative of being a time-inconsistent procrastinator, and classified as sophisticated otherwise. The health-related indicators that we examine relate to smoking, health condition, dentition status, and body habitus. We first show that a higher degree of impatience tends to worsen health-related attributes. Second, respondents with more steeply declining impatience tend to develop more unhealthy behavior and ill-health conditions, and the tendencies are likely to be stronger for naïfs than for sophisticates. Third, the sign effect, too, shows an association with health-related behavior, although the significance levels are not overly high. Consistent with these findings, the principal component of the health-related measures shows strong associations with the degrees of impatience and declining impatience.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: ISER Discussion Paper ; No. 885

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General‡
• Thema: health ; time preference ; discount rate ; hyperbolic discounting ; the sign effect ; the probit model

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Kang, Myong-Il ; Ikeda, Shinsuke
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Osaka University, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
• (wo): Osaka
• (wann): 2013

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/92721
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ